Nº. 1 of  43

Deciding everything

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything." Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (aka: finding one thing, everyday, to love and say thank you for)

May 15, 2012

Sun sets about nine this time of year…

This is always the hardest time of year for me, which is quite possibly the stupidest thing ever. It’s beautiful outside. The days are so long and the sounds of new beginnings and rebirth sing out in all of spring’s glory. And year after year, I find myself fighting a sadness that feels overwhelming. Most people with Seasonal Affective Disorder get it in January, which is totally appropriate and understandable.

Mine comes in May and June, which is insane.

All I can think about are good things ending, without new good things to replace them. And this isn’t lingering resentment over Dawson’s Creek being cancelled. Apparently my heart still functions on a school calendar all these years later. All of the daylight makes me dwell on my inability to fill the hours, and the coming summer months make me feel more alone than usual. As predictable as it is, the sadness always scares me. Because it seems so out of place and untethered and limitless. I fight to enjoy the beauty that these months entail, but only by forcing my mind to be present, to stop worrying about things that haven’t happened yet or focusing on patterns of years past. Today, there is beauty. Tinged with sadness or not, it’s still there. 

May 14, 2012
For nights like this.

For nights like this.

May 14, 2012
I think the money I’ve spent on therapy and pills would have been put to better use filling up my gas tank so I could drive up and down the Everson Goshen Road. It’s where I do my best singing, best crying, and best thinking.

I think the money I’ve spent on therapy and pills would have been put to better use filling up my gas tank so I could drive up and down the Everson Goshen Road. It’s where I do my best singing, best crying, and best thinking.

May 12, 2012
That the ones we love live in our broken hearts forever, and that the memories of being alive together never leave us “You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”  - Anne Lamott

That the ones we love live in our broken hearts forever, and that the memories of being alive together never leave us

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”  - Anne Lamott

May 11, 2012

Foil dinners, corn on the cob, sunsets over red barns & sweet baby boys

May 10, 2012
Perhaps you didn’t hear my uncontrollable sobs from wherever you’re reading this, but Sissy went missing last night. And given an array of unusual circumstances, I had convinced myself she wasn’t coming home. I was trying to muster up the strength to write about how I was thankful for the time I did have with her. And then she showed up at the back door.

Perhaps you didn’t hear my uncontrollable sobs from wherever you’re reading this, but Sissy went missing last night. And given an array of unusual circumstances, I had convinced myself she wasn’t coming home. I was trying to muster up the strength to write about how I was thankful for the time I did have with her. And then she showed up at the back door.

May 9, 2012

Unicorns & rainbows & one step forward toward equality for all. 

But I have to tell you that over the course of several years, as I talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together. When I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that don’t ask, don’t tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married. -President Barack Obama, May 9, 2012

“I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.” 
― Langston Hughes

May 8, 2012
Pink snow Over cherry blossoms white clouds over clouds deep sky over cherry blossoms over clouds over the sky I can climb on forever once in spring I with god  had a quiet talk. –Shuntaro Tanikawa

Pink snow

Over cherry blossoms

white clouds

over clouds

deep sky

over cherry blossoms

over clouds

over the sky

I can climb on forever

once in spring

I with god 

had a quiet talk. –Shuntaro Tanikawa

May 7, 2012

Playing hooky from work to run through the sprinkler on the first warm day in May

May 6, 2012
Rhubarb pie, glassybabies and birthday candles

Rhubarb pie, glassybabies and birthday candles

May 5, 2012

So many things to toast in one little day

May 4, 2012
I really, really needed to read this today. I’ve been feeling so discouraged, and let myself get focused on the wrong things. Is part of the problem that people equate exercise with trying to lose weight, and many of them have given up? A. I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness. If you are overweight but fit, meaning you have a reasonably good V012 max (a measure of oxygen uptake), then your risk of premature death, all the chronic diseases — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — will drop. If you have to choose, choose to be fit, whether you lose weight or not. If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life. It would be nice if people would look at exercise as a way to make themselves feel better and live longer and not necessarily as a way to make themselves skinnier.

I really, really needed to read this today. I’ve been feeling so discouraged, and let myself get focused on the wrong things.

Is part of the problem that people equate exercise with trying to lose weight, and many of them have given up?

A.

I think a lot of people look to exercise to help them lose weight, and when they don’t lose weight immediately with exercise, they quit. They return to the couch, and they basically never move again. What is lost in that is that fitness is almost certainly more important than fatness.

If you are overweight but fit, meaning you have a reasonably good V012 max (a measure of oxygen uptake), then your risk of premature death, all the chronic diseases — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — will drop. If you have to choose, choose to be fit, whether you lose weight or not.

If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life. It would be nice if people would look at exercise as a way to make themselves feel better and live longer and not necessarily as a way to make themselves skinnier.

May 3, 2012
For those of you who may have decided to join in my paranoia, let me share the news: I do not have a brain tumor. According to the MRI (yes, I got an MRI. That’s what people with brain tumors are supposed to do!), I’m suffering some residual effects of the car accident I was in when I was 16. Looking at the spots on my brain, the Dr. asked me if I had any serious head injuries about 15 years ago, which was mildly creepy. So, crisis averted. We’ll all live to see another day. Hallelujah.  Today also seems like a good day to say thank you for the fact that our injuries from that crash weren’t more severe, that the fear of riding with other people in cars has dissipated over the years, and for airbags. The end.

For those of you who may have decided to join in my paranoia, let me share the news: I do not have a brain tumor.

According to the MRI (yes, I got an MRI. That’s what people with brain tumors are supposed to do!), I’m suffering some residual effects of the car accident I was in when I was 16. Looking at the spots on my brain, the Dr. asked me if I had any serious head injuries about 15 years ago, which was mildly creepy. So, crisis averted. We’ll all live to see another day. Hallelujah. 

Today also seems like a good day to say thank you for the fact that our injuries from that crash weren’t more severe, that the fear of riding with other people in cars has dissipated over the years, and for airbags. The end.

May 2, 2012 with 1 note

On dark days, I go back and look at these photos and laugh at how utterly transparent I am and seriously question these photographers’ cropping skills. They’ve kind of become my happy place. Is that bad?

May 1, 2012
Wendell Berry When despair grows in meand I wake in the middle of the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting for their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

Nº. 1 of  43

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